The Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy has permanently revoked the license of the New England Compounding Center, the facility implicated in a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis, Gov. Deval Patrick announced Tuesday.

The announcement comes after state regulators announced that an ongoing investigation had uncovered rampant violations at the Framingham-based facility.

On a conference call with reporters, State Director of Healthcare Safety Madeleine Biondolillo said the violations included 14 instances in which NECC officials shipped products without awaiting sterility test results. Officials also failed to verify, at times, that its equipment was uncontaminated, she said.

The facility was also violating the requirement that every vial of medication be linked to a specific patient prescription, officials said. “NECC was operating beyond the scope of its compounding license, instead acting as a manufacturer,” Biondolillo said.

Biondolillo said investigators witnessed “black particulate matter” in some vials of medicine returned amid the nationwide recall of NECC’s products. That substance turned out to be a “fungal contaminant linked to the outbreak.”

On a conference call with reporters, Patrick noted that compounding facilities were a new and often inadequately regulated player in the pharmaceutical industry.

“It’s time in my view to upgrade our practices,” Patrick said. “No one should live in fear that medicine is unsafe. In these times of constantly questioning the role of government, surely we can all agree that protecting the public’s health and safety is paramount.”

Fatal cases of fungal meningitis held steady at 23 on Tuesday, according to the CDC, but the total number of those sickened in the national outbreak eclipsed 300 for the first time.

Tennessee remains the state with the highest concentration of infected patients, with 70. But Michigan is close behind at 68, followed by Virginia at 41 and Indiana at 40.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 4:19 p.m. on October 23, 2012.